The third round of transatlantic trade talks head into their final day on Friday, with US labour and consumer groups showing increasing resistance to the proposal. AFL-CIO, the country's largest union coalition with 13 million members, painted a negative picture of efforts by the European Union and United States to seal a landmark trade deal - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - by late 2014 or early 2015, dpa. "The TTIP is deigned to export economic dysfunction," declared Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO at forums Wednesday where interest groups got 10 minutes each to have their say. Silvers insisted the deal intends to tip "the balance of social power in Europe" to wealthy corporations. US consumer groups charged that they are being kept in the dark about the talks and have to rely on leaks, like a recent one in Europe, to find out how things are progressing. -- SPA 20:22 LOCAL TIME 17:22 GMT تغريد
